a position to pay them. They can
therefore do nothing, or are compelled to call in cheap charlatans, and
use quack remedies, which do more harm than good. An immense number of
such quacks thrive in every English town, securing their _clientele_
among the poor by means of advertisements, posters, and other such
devices. Besides these, vast quantities of patent medicines are sold,
for all conceivable ailments: Morrison's Pills, Parr's Life Pills, Dr.
Mainwaring's Pills, and a thousand other pills, essences, and balsams,
all of which have the property of curing all the ills that flesh is heir
to. These medicines rarely contain actually injurious substances, but,
when taken freely and often, they affect the system prejudicially; and as
the unwary purchasers are always recommended to take as much as possible,
it is not to be wondered at that they swallow them wholesale whether
wanted or not.

It is by no means unusual for the manufacturer of Parr's Life Pills to
sell twenty to twenty-five thousand boxes of these salutary pills in a
week, and they are taken for constipation by this one, for diarrhoea by
that one, for fever, weakness, and all possible ailments. As our German
peasants are cupped or bled at certain seasons, so do the English working-
people now consume patent medicines to their own injury and the great
profit of the manufacturer. One of the most injurious of these patent
medicines is a drink prepared with opiates, chiefly laudanum, under the
name Godfrey's Cordial. Women who work at home, and have their own and
other people's children to take care of, give them this drink to keep
them quiet, and, as many believe, to strengthen them. They often begin
to give this medicine to newly-born children, and continue, without
knowing the effects of this "heartsease," until the children die. The
less susceptible the child's system to the action of the opium, the
greater the quantities administered. When the cordial ceases to act,
laudanum alone is given, often to the extent of fifteen to twenty drops
at a dose. The Coroner of Nottingham testified before a Parliamentary
Commission {105a} that one apothecary had, according to his own
statement, used thirteen hundredweight of laudanum in one year in the
preparation of Godfrey's Cordial. The effects upon the children so
treated may be readily imagined. They are pale, feeble, wilted, and
usually die before completing the second year. The use of this cordial
is ve